International migrants represented 4.7% of workers worldwide in 2022, which means that 167.7 million migrants were part of the workforce. Most of this contingent was employed in high-income countries and in key sectors such as services, particularly care provision, according to a new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO). This represents a significant increase of 30 million since 2013, although growth has slowed to under 1% annually since 2019, partly due to the pandemic's impact on migration patterns.
Of those in the labor force, 155.6 million migrants were employed, while 12.1 million were unemployed. Despite having a higher participation rate than non-migrants—65.8% compared to 60.1%—migrants faced a higher unemployment rate at 7.2%, versus 5.2% for their non-migrant counterparts.
